Andrews Lecture

The Bertha May Bell Andrews Lectureship was established in 1975 by Dr. Carl Andrews, class of 1940, to honor his mother, who established the physical education program for women at Bates. The annual lectures are intended to emphasize Mrs. Andrews’ conviction that education without morality is useless. Mrs. Andrews embodied this commitment not only in her teaching at Bates, but in her creative and independent life, which included service as Quaker missionary in Argentina.

About Bertha May Bell Andrews

(This material was taken from the Honor Award as the recipient in recognition of distinguished service to the profession, June 3, 1954.)

Bertha May Bell Andrews was born in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, December 15, 1883. When of school age she attended the public school and then at ten years of age attended the traditional family boarding school, Westtown, just west of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. When she completed her work there, she was awarded a scholarship to the Boston Normal School of Gymnastics which became the Department of Hygiene at Wellesley College. later, the eastern states charmed her, with the result she took her Bachelor’s degree from the University of New Hampshire becoming a member of the Honor Society – Kapp Delta Pi. She went on to Teachers’ College, Columbia University for her Master’s Degree even working beyond that. Later, she took extension courses at Brown University. Summers she studied in Chicago and Temple University in Philadelphia. One summer she spent among the Mountain Whites of Kentucky.

The teaching profession took her to many remote places including South America. Her first teaching position (1904-5), was in providence, Rhode Island at Friend’s School which was changed from a co-educational school to a boys’ school named Moses Brown School. She then took the place of a teacher at Miss Knox School (1906-7), Briarcliffe Manor, New York. The teacher wanted to go abroad for a year. When chaperoning a group to New York City, she was in a train wreck where two of her students were killed. There were 20 killed and 153 injured.

She was then called to organize the Department at the Women’s Division of the University of North Carolina in Greensboro, North Carolina. (1908-9) From there she journeyed to Argentina going via England. Here she had some wonderful experiences traveling over the country and even crossing the Andes to Chile and around the Straits of Magellan to Montevideo and Buenos Aires. After four years, she returned to the States and headed the department at Bates College, Lewiston, Maine. She taught there for four years and then was married. They were temporarily located in Gardiner, Maine, when a son was born, now Dr. Carl Edwin Andrews, a well known surgeon in West Palm Beach, Florida. While in Gardiner, she was called to lecture at Colby College in Waterville, Maine and then was asked to organize the department. Soon after starting her second year, her husband died suddenly. (Sept. 1921) Later, she became Dean of Women and head of Health Education at Guilford College, N.C.

After four years she returned to New England and taught at the Rhode Island College of Education (1932-1954) and in a few years, was made a professor.

She was active in war work being Dean of the Recreation Course for war workers in New York City, sponsored by the YWCA. She was active in summer camping positions. She journeyed from Maine to Florida, to California and Canada, even to England, Portugal, Spain, Tennefiffe and coastal cities of South America. She had a busy and interesting life.

“That you may reap the rewards of a job well done, feel the satisfaction that accompany the genuine respect and good will of your associates and enjoy the comforts of your retirement is the earnest wish of your friends here in Providence, who will miss you as we carry on.” She taught there for 22 years.